Cross Development LLC of Carrollton, Texas, wants to buy and redevelop a vacant warehouse at 3633 St. Augustine Road into a Caliber Collision Non-Drive auto and truck collision body repair center, plans show.
It would create 20 jobs.
The facility is designed to restore “unsafe, inoperable, seriously damaged vehicles” as opposed to Caliber Collision’s other shops that repair less damaged “fender benders,” according to a zoning application for administrative deviations.
A damaged vehicle stays in a conventional shop for less than a week while a car or truck could remain in a no-drive facility for three to four weeks because of the extensive amount of repair work needed and the large number of replacement parts that need to be ordered, the request states.
Caliber Collision entered the Jacksonville market in 2015. Since then it built two centers at 7208 Golden Wings Road in Westside and 2079 Mayport Road.
It also redeveloped three vacant structures at 8320 Dames Point Road in Arlington, 8318 Atlantic Blvd. and 13051 Beach Blvd.
Boxtown Bright Lite LLC owns the vacant warehouse on an acre along St. Augustine Road, off Philips Highway. The structure was built in 1958 and expanded by almost 9,000 square feet in 1996.
Cross Development seeks about a dozen deviations that include a reduction in off-street parking spaces, interior landscaping, the number of terminal island trees and the landscape buffer area.
“By investing a substantial amount of capital to purchase and redevelop this vacant, deteriorating, unused warehouse, Cross Development, LLC and Caliber Collision will improve the essential character of this section of the St. Augustine Road corridor, and in so doing help property values of its neighbors as well,” the application states.
Caliber Collision Centers Chief Marketing Officer Greg Clark said the company has no comment about its real estate transactions.
Caliber Collision operates more than 500 locations in 17 states and says it is the country’s largest collision repair company. Its website says it has about 10 Non-Drive locations.
Boxtown Bright Lite, led by Roger Williams, bought the St. Augustine Road property in January 2017, property records show.
Williams, Harbinger Sign CEO, and company President Steve Williams said the last time they used the building was when they bought the business called Brite Lite signs in September 2016. For efficiency, the business was moved by the end of that year into the Harbinger facility at 5300 Shad Road.
Roger Williams said the property sale to Cross Development could be completed this spring.
Steve Williams said Jacksonville customers, such as Gate Petroleum Co., Daily’s, Baptist Health and the Jacksonville Jaguars, among other companies, helped Harbinger expand. He said it has quintupled in size since 2010.
The company has an office in Dallas and the Williamses estimate that 60 percent of its business is outside of Jacksonville.
Roger and Steve Williams said they want Harbinger to continue growing in its hometown.
“We are trying to get more business in Jacksonville,” Steve Williams said.